diff --git a/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks.h b/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks.h
index 950b412e57..4e7554bc34 100644
--- a/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks.h
+++ b/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks.h
@@ -1,20 +1,6 @@
 #ifndef ARCH_HOOKS_H
 #define ARCH_HOOKS_H
 
-/*
- * I'm undecided about when it's a good idea to use arch; I'm experimenting
- * a bit.
- *
- * This arch driver is simply called at various important points, to let
- * architectures do things.  Windows can use this to start up the crash
- * handler and to output Windows-specific debug information, for example.
- *
- * This class should have one-way data transfer only: functions are called,
- * they may do something, and no data is returned.  (We don't want to have
- * to deal with error handling and so on when using these functions.)
- *
- * This class is constructed at the very start of the program.
- */
 class ArchHooks
 {
 public:
@@ -36,6 +22,9 @@ public:
 	virtual void ExitTimeCriticalSection() { }
 
 	virtual void SetTime( tm newtime ) { }
+
+	/* */
+	virtual int64_t GetMicrosecondsSinceStart() = 0;
 };
 
 ArchHooks *MakeArchHooks();
diff --git a/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks_Win32.cpp b/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks_Win32.cpp
index a12b77863e..adbd4188c4 100644
--- a/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks_Win32.cpp
+++ b/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks_Win32.cpp
@@ -13,6 +13,9 @@
 #include "archutils/win32/VideoDriverInfo.h"
 #include "archutils/win32/WindowsResources.h"
 
+#include <mmsystem.h>
+#pragma comment(lib, "winmm.lib") // for GetMicrosecondsSinceStart
+
 ArchHooks_Win32::ArchHooks_Win32()
 {
 	SetUnhandledExceptionFilter(CrashHandler);
@@ -182,6 +185,20 @@ void ArchHooks_Win32::SetTime( tm newtime )
 	SetLocalTime( &st ); 
 }
 
+int64_t ArchHooks_Win32::GetMicrosecondsSinceStart()
+{
+	static bool bInitialized;
+	static DWORD iStartTime;
+	if( !bInitialized )
+	{
+		timeBeginPeriod( 1 );
+		bInitialized = true;
+		iStartTime = timeGetTime();
+	}
+
+	return (timeGetTime() - iStartTime) * 1000;
+}
+
 /*
  * (c) 2003-2004 Glenn Maynard, Chris Danford
  * All rights reserved.
diff --git a/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks_Win32.h b/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks_Win32.h
index c9a6b51f08..3d72256aa7 100644
--- a/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks_Win32.h
+++ b/stepmania/src/arch/ArchHooks/ArchHooks_Win32.h
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ public:
 	void EnterTimeCriticalSection();
 	void ExitTimeCriticalSection();
 	void SetTime( tm newtime );
+	int64_t GetMicrosecondsSinceStart();
 
 private:
 	void CheckVideoDriver();